In his
comedies, Shakespeare examines love, and all the various ways that it manifests
itself in the human experience. In A
Midsummer Night's Dream, he uses another thematic proposition, illusion versus
reality, to help him investigate the question of human love and how and/or why
we fall in and out of love.
I think the
main device in this play, concerning love as illusion versus reality, is the
love juice provided by Oberon. His
interest to punish Titania by using it to make her believe that she is in love
with a "wild thing," and also to assist the broken-hearted Helena in
winning the love of Demetrius. The
fickleness and the unexplained origin of a human's "falling in love"
are demonstrated onstage through the power that Oberon (and Puck) wields in
this regard through the juice of a flower.
Of course,
since Midsummer is a comedy, there are complications and mix-ups that must
ensue, so Puck not only causes a "wild thing" (Bottom, as Puck has
transformed him into an ass) to fall in love with Titania and Demetrius to fall
in love with Helena, he also mistakenly causes Lysander to fall in love with
Helena, creating the great comic "fight scene" in the woods between
the four lovers. This demostrates how easy is it to manipulate love and
affectons for the Fairy King.
Illusion
versus reality is also demonstrated through the references made throughout the
play that remind the audience that they are participating in the theatrical
world "of illusion" --a world of fairies and magic in which whatever
the playwright desires can happen and any mix-ups or troubles that the
characters find themselves in, can be made right in an instant. At the play's
end, Puck himself alludes to this contrast between illusion (theatre) and
reality (the real world) with his lines:
If we
shadows have offended
Think but
this, and all is mended--
That you
have but slumbered here
While this
visions did appear.
And this
weak and idle theme,
No more
yielding than a dream.
Let me know what you think :)
REFERENCES:
Richter, N (2010) A Midsummer Night's Dream: Imagination, Romantic Love, and the Creation of Art Retrieved from http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/130/a-midsummer-nights-dream-imagination-romantic-love-and-the-creation-of-art
Shakespeare, W. A Midsummer Night's Dream
REFERENCES:
Richter, N (2010) A Midsummer Night's Dream: Imagination, Romantic Love, and the Creation of Art Retrieved from http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/130/a-midsummer-nights-dream-imagination-romantic-love-and-the-creation-of-art
Shakespeare, W. A Midsummer Night's Dream
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